The best Clinton could do last week was to deny, through his lawyer, the assault, though not the sex. The best his backers could do was to insist that this doesn’t fit Clinton’s adulterous M.O., which they say was merely manipulative, not violent; some supporters make a “contextual” argument, explaining that in the 1970s, “date rape” was not yet an accepted concept and arrogant horndogs like Clinton routinely had their way with women who said no. Stipulated, counselor. He’s not the rapist in chief, only the sleaze in chief. How comforting.
The news media were wrongly blamed by Clinton-haters for sitting on this one. NBC News (where, full disclosure, I work part time) had to check everything it could before airing such an explosive story. And the rest of the media, including NEWSWEEK, couldn’t very well detail Broaddrick’s charges without an interview. Fox’s Brit Hume calls the new external pressure to air stories before they are ready “accountability.” I call it one of the worst developments in journalism in a decade.
But it’s also wrong for Clinton supporters to claim the Broaddrick story isn’t “relevant.” It is highly relevant–not just to any assessment of Clinton’s character but to the first impeachment of a president in 130 years. Recall that after the 1998 election, impeachment seemed dead. So House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (who now faces his own allegations of lying under oath in a civil case) needed some Hamburger Helper to win the big vote. That’s where the “Jane Doe No. 5” story came in. GOP members were encouraged to read her interview with Starr’s investigators in a secret vault. One GOP House member says the sealed Broaddrick material was decisive for “a few” of his colleagues. With the obstruction count carrying in the House on Dec. 19 by only five votes, that may have been enough to change history.
The Broaddrick story helps explain why House GOP leaders seemed so passionate in their hatred of Clinton. They thought he was a rapist, though they knew they couldn’t prove it. They could have fashioned an impeachment charge for assault (the statute of limitations would not have applied to impeachment), but they didn’t dare. The story was old, and Henry Hyde and company didn’t want to subpoena Broaddrick and subject her to cross-examination. So they decided to have her story spread privately, to poison the well secretly and impeach the president in part for something he wasn’t charged with. Later, they pressured the media to roll the Broaddrick grenade into the Senate trial, with the hope that public opinion might change and the Senate might convict him for being a bad, immoral man. How fair. How constitutional.
As for Starr, his deputies, Michael Emmick and Jackie Bennett Jr., recently demanded that Lewinsky not discuss on television how she was treated on Jan. 16, 1998, when Lewinsky was first confronted by law enforcement at the Ritz Carlton Hotel. Their conduct that night is now under investigation. In other words, to protect themselves, Emmick and Bennett used their federal power to gag Lewinsky, who now has every right to speak her mind. And Starr pontificates about witness tampering! Starr’s excuse for censoring Lewinsky–that she might prejudice some future jury pool–didn’t seem to be an issue when he dumped all over Clinton to Diane Sawyer last year, an interview that would normally get him thrown off an ongoing case by a judge.
“We’ll just have to win, then,” Clinton told Dick Morris last year. That might as well have been Starr’s motto, too, and DeLay’s. Anything to catch the prey. Watching Clinton walk away from this one is especially frustrating, but what can be done? The American people aren’t morally oblivious, they’re disgusted and bored–with all of them.
title: “Disgraceful All Around” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-08” author: “Lauren Hendricks”
The best Clinton could do last week was to deny, through his lawyer, the assault, though not the sex. The best his backers could do was to insist that this doesn’t fit Clinton’s adulterous M.O., which they say was merely manipulative, not violent; some supporters make a “contextual” argument, explaining that in the 1970s, “date rape” was not yet an accepted concept and arrogant horndogs like Clinton routinely had their way with women who said no. Stipulated, counselor. He’s not the rapist in chief, only the sleaze in chief. How comforting.
The news media were wrongly blamed by Clinton-haters for sitting on this one. NBC News (where, full disclosure, I work part time) had to check everything it could before airing such an explosive story. And the rest of the media, including NEWSWEEK, couldn’t very well detail Broaddrick’s charges without an interview. Fox’s Brit Hume calls the new external pressure to air stories before they are ready “accountability.” I call it one of the worst developments in journalism in a decade.
But it’s also wrong for Clinton supporters to claim the Broaddrick story isn’t “relevant.” It is highly relevant–not just to any assessment of Clinton’s character but to the first impeachment of a president in 130 years. Recall that after the 1998 election, impeachment seemed dead. So House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (who now faces his own allegations of lying under oath in a civil case) needed some Hamburger Helper to win the big vote. That’s where the “Jane Doe No. 5” story came in. GOP members were encouraged to read her interview with Starr’s investigators in a secret vault. One GOP House member says the sealed Broaddrick material was decisive for “a few” of his colleagues. With the obstruction count carrying in the House on Dec. 19 by only five votes, that may have been enough to change history.
The Broaddrick story helps explain why House GOP leaders seemed so passionate in their hatred of Clinton. They thought he was a rapist, though they knew they couldn’t prove it. They could have fashioned an impeachment charge for assault (the statute of limitations would not have applied to impeachment), but they didn’t dare. The story was old, and Henry Hyde and company didn’t want to subpoena Broaddrick and subject her to cross-examination. So they decided to have her story spread privately, to poison the well secretly and impeach the president in part for something he wasn’t charged with. Later, they pressured the media to roll the Broaddrick grenade into the Senate trial, with the hope that public opinion might change and the Senate might convict him for being a bad, immoral man. How fair. How constitutional.
As for Starr, his deputies, Michael Emmick and Jackie Bennett Jr., recently demanded that Lewinsky not discuss on television how she was treated on Jan. 16, 1998, when Lewinsky was first confronted by law enforcement at the Ritz Carlton Hotel. Their conduct that night is now under investigation. In other words, to protect themselves, Emmick and Bennett used their federal power to gag Lewinsky, who now has every right to speak her mind. And Starr pontificates about witness tampering! Starr’s excuse for censoring Lewinsky–that she might prejudice some future jury pool–didn’t seem to be an issue when he dumped all over Clinton to Diane Sawyer last year, an interview that would normally get him thrown off an ongoing case by a judge.
“We’ll just have to win, then,” Clinton told Dick Morris last year. That might as well have been Starr’s motto, too, and DeLay’s. Anything to catch the prey. Watching Clinton walk away from this one is especially frustrating, but what can be done? The American people aren’t morally oblivious, they’re disgusted and bored–with all of them.
